Needles may be used to transfer an agent, drug or other substance into a patient. The needle may be inserted into the patient at a desired location. The needle may be hollow and include a hollow tip. A syringe with a drug may be attached to an end of the needle so that the drug may flow from the syringe, through the hollow needle, through the needle tip and into the patient.
An epidural injection, or epidural steroid injection, may be used to help reduce the pain caused by a herniated disc, degenerative disc disease, or spinal stenosis. These spinal disorders often affect the cervical (neck) and lumbar (lower back) areas of the spine.
The medicine used in the injection is usually a combination of a local anesthetic (e.g. bupivacaine) and a steroid (e.g. triamcinolone). The technique and risks of the procedure are similar to those for standard epidural analgesia. The technique is believed to work by reducing the inflammation or swelling, or both, of the nerves in the epidural space.
Needle placement for epidurals around the spine and nerve roots are typically performed under fluoroscopic guidance. A needle may be inserted near the spine and a practitioner may consult a fluoroscope display to ensure that the needle placement is at the proper location and depth. The fluoroscope provides a display so as to avoid inadvertently inserting the needle within adjacent nerve structures.
An example application of needle placement is the injection of epidural steroid drugs near compressed and inflamed nerve roots to treat sciatica, back pain or leg pain. In such a procedure, the doctor first inserts a needle into a patient at a desired location. A syringe with a drug may be connected to the needle. Thereafter, the doctor may exchange the syringe with another syringe to inject different compounds into the patient during the procedure. The present disclosure describes an improvement over these prior art technologies.